2007 Tour of California Prologue & Greg Lemond

This year’s ToC prologue was the same route as last year: a short, fast individual time trial down the Embarcadero and up to the summit of Telegraph Hill at the base of Coit Tower. I took some pictures near the start ramp and from there we headed up Telegraph Hill where I perched myself up on the side of the hill to get some shots of the racers about 200m from the finish.

We capped off the day by going to a screening of the 1989 Tour de France narrated live by Phil Liggett and Greg Lemond. Greg started the show by unbuttoning his shirt to show Phil his bullet-wound scars on his stomach. Once his belly popped out I realized he must not be doing much riding these days. The showing of the ’89 Tour began, and for the love of all things holy, I have no idea why they didn’t mute the sound…I mean here you have on stage, with microphones, the guy who won it and the greatest bike racing commentator in history, and they couldn’t speak over the blaring sound coming out of the video. They did, however, pause the film occasionally while Greg went into very long-winded stories of the victory. The whole thing finished about two hours later than planned.

I haven’t had time to caption the photos, but here are a few…actually more than just a few: